


Afternoon

by alientongue



Category: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, M/M, casual bickering between kismeses, getting a handle on their dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 15:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12560832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alientongue/pseuds/alientongue
Summary: Darrell and Rad wind down from their first spar as hatemates.





	Afternoon

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't even think of blackrom darrad seriously at first but the idea really grew on me, so here's hoping i'm not the only one who enjoys it

A late fall afternoon was not the ideal time for sitting, beaten-up and winded, on the curb lining the Bodega. In Darrell’s case, the problem lay in the light—this far along in the season, the sun’d started dealing in opposites. What light there was was harsh, almost orange in its brightness, broken by deep, defined shadows, and the _crispness_ of it all was disheartening in a way he couldn’t exactly place. In the case of the alien slouched beside him on the curb, though, that crispness made a much more straightforward problem: it was _cold_ , with even the sunlight more glaring than it was warm, which couldn’t have been easy on his warm-blooded organic body.

Served him right, really.

Darrell shifted his feet on the pavement, kicking at the loose gravel scattered over the edge of the blacktop, and allowed himself a lopsided smirk at Rad’s muttered curse against the cold and against the backstabbing sun. It didn’t reply (though perfectly capable), and after a moment of nothing but the muted rush of cars in the distance, Darrell took up its stead. “So what about my ‘second-rate robot body’, huh? Those muscles keeping you warm?” He rapped his knuckles against the circular panel on his chest, for a second letting them rest in the heat still radiating from his racing generator.

Though it took a tilt of his head to see past the cracks in the outer lens of his eye, seeing Rad’s scowl was worth it. While the look was always a welcome sight, today’s scuffle had made a few additions. Darrell’s eye traced from his one newly-blackened eye, to his bloody nose, to his split lip, and then further down, to the long scratches across his forearm and the combination of heavy bruising and puncture wounds that could only match up with a spiked gauntlet. The metal of his own arms warped in places, abdomen aching where a bad landing had pushed a dent into it, he swallowed and felt his chest pulse hotter.

He didn’t realize he’d been staring until Rad pushed his chin back up with a snort and held it, locking Darrell’s one yellow eye on his nearly-indigo two. “I think they’re keeping _you_ warm, if you get what I mean, and you do. We just finished a hatespar, you needy little freak.” A combination of the insult and Rad’s parting squeeze to his jaw had Darrell’s lips curling over his fangs as Rad pulled his arms back to himself. Crossing them over his bare abdomen, he huffed a cloud of white into the chilly air before one side of his lips quirked upwards around his own jutting canines. “‘Course, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t be able to get enough of me, either.”

“It’s not like that—” Darrell struggled for words, the LEDs under his cheeks lighting red, and Rad sat back to watch him with a broadening smirk and the knowledge that, as usual, his hatemate had gotten the short end of their banter. Several seconds of glitched sputtering finally produced a two-word imperative starting with a very particular four-letter word. Rad shrugged. “Maybe later,” he offered, then rose to his feet with a stretch and limped through the automatic doors of the Bodega. 

By the time he returned with a paper bowlful of lightning nachos, Darrell had attempted furiously to calm his cooling fans with dubious success, which Rad plopping down next to him did nothing to help. Refocusing his efforts, he stared intently and red-facedly into the cracked asphalt of the parking lot and listened to the crunching of Rad starting on his nachos. Cars continued to rush in the street. A few compsognathus in the decorative bushes chittered. The crunching came to a stop.

“Do you think they know?” For once, Rad sounded almost contemplative, and Darrell looked up to see him with one hand still in the nacho bowl, brow furrowed at nothing in particular.

He rolled his eye. “I mean, we just had a spar _right there._ In front of K.O. and Enid and everything. If they know what a hatemate is they know, and maybe if they don’t, too.”

“Huh.” Rad’s brow furrowed further as he turned a chip between his fingers. “What’s your dad gonna think?”

His eye turned back to the pavement, hands clasping together. It took some effort to keep his pointed fingertips from scratching his paint. “I don’t know. He doesn’t like friends, but this really isn’t friends...I don’t know.”

“Huh,” Rad repeated, and lifted the chip to his mouth. The steady pace of his chewing resumed.

From the corner of his eye, Darrell watched, following every mouthful to Rad’s bloody lips and wringing his hands before pulling them from each other, resting them instead on the rough concrete of the curb. Then, as Rad paused to lick the traces of lightning cheese from his fingertips, he snuck one hand into the bowl and drew back an awkward fistful. Cheese dripped from between his fingers, and most of the chips had cracked, but it was sizable nonetheless. A nonchalant glimpse sideways yielded Rad regarding him irritatedly. Trying to keep his mouth from twitching into a smile, Darrell raised his stolen nachos—

And promptly had them shoved into his face as Rad slapped Darrell’s hand into himself. He made an undignified squeaking noise and jerked away, cameras in his cracked eye buzzing at the excess electricity and the display of his outer lens reduced to static. It took the entirety of Rad’s self-satisfied snickering before he had readjusted his camera and display calibration, and he glared as fiercely as he could manage while wiping lightning cheese from his face.

However fierce that was, it wasn’t enough to wipe off the smirk across Rad’s face. Eye narrowed in resolve, Darrell slid down the curb, their thighs nearly touching, and with a staticky huff shoved hard at his shoulder.

It didn’t exactly knock Rad off-balance, but it did have him catching himself on one arm as momentary alarm flitted across his expression, quickly replaced by a determination to mirror Darrell’s. His attempt, at least, was telegraphed, enough so that Darrell could grab his hands in the split second of the shove and push back with all the strength he could muster. After their spar, it wasn’t much; his servos clicked in distressed protest and arms shook as he struggled to hold the distance between them steady. Their fingers had intertwined, and Darrell’s fans sprang into noisy action again as he met Rad’s glare, dredging the last reserves of power from his shoulders.

Then Rad gave a last, heaving push as he let go, and the reserves gave, Darrell’s elbows buckling against his chest. He just barely managed to catch himself from falling, and as he braced his shaking palms against the grain of the concrete he shot Rad his most hateful look. “You didn’t even hold on.” Rad only shrugged with a flash of hideous smugness in return, cheeks magenta as he retrieved the bowl of nachos he’d set down on the grass. Fans still whirring, Darrell exhaled—the puff of his breath was white, too, through steam rather than freezing. So much heat had built under his skin. Maybe from exertion. 

“Do you think,” he started, “they’d really notice kissing?”

Rad hesitated with a chip halfway to his mouth and sighed, propping his chin up on his free hand. “Take a guess, dude.”

Darrell gave a quiet, wordless grumble. Rad still hadn’t lifted the current chip. “Can I have that?”

He didn’t bother to respond, just gave a grunt and scooted closer to Darrell. Their thighs really did touch, metal to denim, as Rad held the chip to Darrell’s face, and he opened his mouth readily, scraping his teeth against Rad’s fingers as they withdrew. He could barely taste the nachos anyway.

Rad didn’t even wince as he examined his new scratches. “Freak.”

Darrell swallowed near-immediately, not bothering to try for flavor his receptors couldn’t detect. “Idiot.”

**Author's Note:**

> initially i only planned for this to be about 600 words, and to not keep me up until 2:45 am, but hey


End file.
